


Die From A Broken Heart

by shrimpy_1924



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Also this does talk about using alcohol and sex as coping mechanisms, Alternate Universe, Angst, Childhood Friends, M/M, Unrequited Love, and drunk sex (but it doesn't go into detail on that), but it ends on a good if slightly bittersweet note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 10:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20487518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrimpy_1924/pseuds/shrimpy_1924
Summary: “Mom, can you die from a broken heart?"





	Die From A Broken Heart

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Die From A Broken Heart by Maddie & Tae. And with the ending, I kinda feel like Passenger Side (Grizfolk Remix) by Smallpools fits. This story is just me basically trying to sort out my own life and writing it down makes it easier. This also isn't like super edited so sorry about that. Enjoy!

“I’ve just known you for so long… I feel like I need to experience things… with someone else.” 

This sentence crushed him, after so much time pining and wishing and hoping and it all came down to this sentence. It felt like an echo in his head, heard yet not processed. 

He opened the car door like he was on auto-pilot, got out of the car and turned around. He heard himself say “Yeah, I get that. I need to go pick up my brother now, but I hope we can stay best friends. No matter what I don’t want to lose your friendship.” He smiled, then unlocked his car and got in. 

He waited until Phil pulled away before he let the tears start to fall down. After years of knowing him he knew that Phil wouldn’t have left if he had started crying immediately after he was rejected. He also knew that Phil had gently let him down, most likely in order to spare his feelings. It’s the small things that Phil did, the way he knew Dan almost better than Dan knew himself, that led him to fall in love with him in the first place. Years of knowing each other, as their mothers had been friends long before they were born, led to a bond so strong that at times it had been hard to differentiate romantic feelings from platonic ones. It was now obvious they each had chosen different ways to interpret those feelings. 

Dan started to drive, really having to go pick up his brother and drop him off somewhere else. After dropping him off at his friend’s house, Dan started to drive around aimlessly. He felt like such a fool. He had first confessed his feelings for Phil the summer before their first year of university, hoping that the fact they were attending different schools would help him get over Phil. At the time, he thought that by telling Phil it would be the first step to getting over a crush he’d had since their freshman year of high school. 

For a while it worked, as he made new friends he thought less and less about Phil until one night halfway through the first semester. He got drunk and had sex for the first time, and it was because he was sad, and lonely, and drunk. Earlier that day Phil had messaged him saying that he had met a guy and that he thought he had a crush on him. After that Dan couldn’t get Phil out of his head and after quite a few glasses of vodka cranberry he went home with a friend of a friend. He was in his head the whole time, thinking about Phil and how much he missed him, and immediately after the other guy came he kicked him out. He then took a shower and just cried. He thought the hold Phil had on his heart had loosed but just knowing that Phil liked someone was enough to make it tighten again. 

After that he had sex with boys and girls, trying to get Phil out of his head but it never worked. Every time he ended up thinking about Phil, and when Phil started dating his crush it just got worse. He tried to support them because he wanted Phil happy, but then he tried to sabotage them because it felt like Phil was too happy. He knew it wasn’t healthy and that what he was doing wasn’t okay but it felt like he couldn’t stop himself. 

This pattern continued into his sophomore year of university, getting drunk and hooking up with people just to get Phil off his mind but by now he didn't expect it to work, it just made him feel better, even if just for a little bit. In February of his second year, Dan met Kyle. Kyle was everything Phil wasn’t and he made Dan feel good. Dan thought, maybe this is it. Maybe this is what I needed to get over Phil, someone who sees me as a first choice, who is here with me, and likes me. For a while it felt like bliss, but then Phil came to visit Dan at his University with his boyfriend in tow. Phil had been dating this man named Sam for a while and he seemed so happy with him that it made Dan both feel happy and sad. They all went out together and watching Phil with Sam made Dan feel progressively sadder and sadder. After he said goodnight to Kyle, Dan, Phil and Sam all went back to his apartment as Dan had offered his place for them to stay. Sam had said he was exhausted he had immediately gone to bed, leaving Dan and Phil alone for the first time that night. It felt like old times and it reminded Dan why he fell for Phil in the first place. He pulled down a bottle of vodka to share and after a few shots he was confessing to Phil again. He didn't remember much of that night, just the tears and telling Phil how much he cared for him, but he remembered one thing clearly. He remembered Phil saying “I’m scared about how I feel for you. I can't imagine a future without you and that scares me.” After that it's all a blur and the next morning he said goodbye to Phil and Sam, pretending he couldn't remember any of the night before. After this, him and Kyle started to drift apart until their relationship ended with Kyle saying he didn't want to wait for someone who was so obviously hung up over someone. This was the end of his second year and he still couldn't get over Phil and he felt like a failure. 

The summer before their third year of university Phil left the country to do a summer abroad program. It helped loosen the hold Phil had on Dan’s heart and seeing Phil do what he loved filled Dan with joy. That summer him and Kyle started talking again, testing the waters as Kyle could tell Dan was seemingly losing interest in Phil. That summer was great and when Phil returned it felt like when they were children again; late nights watching TV, eating shitty food, and talking late into the night. Going into his third-year Dan was excited by the prospect of possibly finally getting over Phil, and while his heart still felt a tug for the man it wasn’t as strong as before. As school picked up he was happy and he felt a little bit for free than he did before. Then he found out Phil and Sam split up and he felt like he was placed back at square one. The thing was, after he confessed to Phil the first time he didn't wait for a response, he literally ran away before he could hear what Phil had to say. Since then they never had a conversation about it, at least not sober, and when drunk they both let their walls down a bit more than they should and those drunk conversations left Dan with some hope. Hope that there was something there. That maybe they could still end up together. That maybe he would get the happily ever after he’d been dreaming of since he was 14. 

His third year was also the year Dan studied abroad. He left the country the second semester and it felt so freeing. To be so far from Phil, it felt like a breath of fresh air. He knew that he was always a bit co-dependent on Phil and this gave him a chance to really grow without Phil there for him to fall back on. One night he got drunk and called Phil and told him that while he was away, he didn’t want to talk to Phil. That he needed time and space to get over him, and that this was the best way to do it. That phone call with filled with tears on both sides and Dan went to bed sobbing that night. They followed through on this and for his whole experience abroad Dan had no contact with Phil and he learned to grow as his own person. The only message he received from Phil was the day before he left, saying “Have a safe trip back. When you get home, I want to talk.” A few days after returning home, Dan texted Phil and they set a date to meet up. 

The first meetup they had the summer before their senior year of college they didn't talk about the phone conversation they had while Dan was abroad. They just caught up on each other’s lives and filled each other in on what they had been doing. The second meetup they had was at a local bar and they once again didn’t talk about the phone conversation but instead they talked about their future plans and how their summer jobs were going. Outside of this, Dan had finally reached out for help for dealing with his depression, something he had been avoiding for a long time. The meds he’d been prescribed helped and the therapy he was in helped as well. As they were each entering their final year of school he was trying to prepare himself for graduation and the future. He wanted to start his last year of university with a clean slate and he wanted to get rid of some of the baggage he had been carrying around since high school. He met with various friends to catch up on their lives and he forgave those who had hurt him in the past, finally taking his life into his own hands. 

That brings him to here, the third meetup he and Phil had that summer, which started at an ice cream parlor. They barely made it before closing and as they sat on a bench illuminated by a light as the sun went down they talked about the upcoming school year. The whole-time Dan knew he had to bring up the conversation this time, as he left for school in a day and he needed to know for sure what they had between them. For a long time, he hadn't felt ready for this conversation with Phil but he felt like he finally was, no matter the response. As the sky got darker and the bugs came out Phil suggested they sit in his car so they could keep talking. As they talked Dan checked the clock which read 9:45 and he knew he had to pick up his brother at 10:00 and that’s when he decided to rip the Band-Aid off. 

“Phil, before I leave, I need to ask you a serious question… What are we?”

Phil looked like a deer in headlights and that’s when Dan knew but he needed verbal confirmation. 

“What do you mean, what are we?” Phil asked nervously, not making eye contact with Dan. 

Taking a deep breath, Dan said “You know I like you, romantically. I know we haven't really talked about it since I told you the summer before we started college, but I know you know that I still like you. I just, I need to know. Is there…anything here? Is there any chance my feelings are returned or… do I truly need to move on? I know I didn't give you a chance to answer when I told you the first time, and I think part of that was that I wasn’t ready to know. Our conversations since then, you’ve always said you can’t picture a future without me, and I honestly don’t know what that means. I just, I need a rejection before I can let go, I need to know that there is nothing here.” 

Phil looked at his hands, then Dan, then his hands again.  
“I love you, you know that. But, I don't like you like that. We’ve been friends for so long, I just can’t see you that way. You know I care about you, but it’s not like that. You’re my best friend, and I don’t want that to change. I don't want there to be something that could ruin that.” 

Phil then looked Dan in the eyes and said “I’ve just known you for so long… I feel like I need to experience things… with someone else.” 

And that brings us here, Dan trying not to cry as he drives home after dropping his brother off at a friend’s house for the night. 

As he pulled into his house, he texted his mom. 

-Can you come out to my car?  
-Yes

As he waited for her to come out he played through the conversation he had with Phil earlier and when his mom came out and got in the passenger side, he just broke down and cried. It wasn’t often that he cried, so she held him. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Is it Phil?”

“Are you okay?”

He could hear her questions but every time he tried to answer another sob would come out. It felt like hours later he was just sniffling, and he filled her in about his feelings for Phil. She just sat and listened, as she knew about his sexuality but they never discussed it so openly as to the boys he liked. But Dan needed to talk to someone about it and his mom was the only one he felt like he could have this conversation with. 

After talking for what felt like ages Dan felt exhausted, tired from all the talking and all the crying. He finally was feeling okay, even if just a little bit. 

After siting in silence for a moment he asked “Mom, can you die from a broken heart?” 

She pulled him in close and said “No, it might feel like it but your heart will get stronger from this. Life doesn't always go the way we want it to and we just have to accept that. You have to believe that there is a reason for this. I love you and I know you’ll make it through this.” 

Dan went to bed that night, with no more tears left to cry. However, the strangest thing happened when he woke up. He felt lighter and when he thought about the conversation the night before he had with Phil he didn't feel sad, what he felt was more bittersweet. He finally felt like he could move on and that he had the whole world in front of him. As he packed up his stuff to move back to school, he thought about all the possibilities in front of him now that he accepted that there was no romantic future with Phil. He could strengthen his friendship with Phil and he could start looking for love without the weight of the unknown on his shoulders. Phil was his best friend first and foremost and he wanted to keep Phil in his life forever, in whatever capacity he could. It might be hard for a bit, but he knew that he and Phil would always be close. He felt like this was a new beginning and as he pulled out of his driveway, all he could think about was how it seemed like the world had gotten just the tiniest bit brighter.


End file.
